Haunting Memories
by ArthursCamelot
Summary: Just a long one-shot that gives insight (new and old) into the events of CA: TWS. Hints of Romanogers but with WinterWidow endgame. Sets up a WinterWidow sequel. ... C'mon, you're know you're bored at work or in class. This will make time go faster, I promise. :)


**Author's Notes: It's been four years (Holy shit!), but I'm back on this site with thousands of words to post. This is a new fandom for me. If you check out my profile, you'll know I was heavily immersed in the Hunger Games fandom for a long while, but since then, I've gotten two college degrees, and I'm halfway through my Master's now, but in all that time I've always managed to find time to write. And to be honest? I've missed you guys. Yes, you random people in a fandom I've never posted in before. So, here's a long one-shot that takes place within CA: TWS that sets up a WinterWidow story I'm currently wrapping up.**

 **So, without further ado . . .**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Captain America or anything else in the MCU. Regrettably.**

* * *

Captain America: TWS

Haunting Memories

One: Steve

The first real friend he makes in the present day is not one that he expects, and when he looks back to the beginning, he isn't sure that he really had much of a choice in the matter.

He wakes up in a world where he does not belong. He walks the streets he's known all his life only to find them starkly different. SHIELD places him in an apartment that he knows to be made for him. Everything from the appliances to the wallpaper says 1940s. It only makes him feel more out of place.

Then Loki comes with the Chitauri. There is a war to fight, and suddenly Steve feels as if he has both feet firmly the ground. He knows war. He understands war. But then the war is won, and everyone goes home.

There is nowhere for Steve to go.

Fury offers him a job leading the STRIKE team, the Howling Commandos of the modern world. Steve doesn't take the offer, but Fury says it will wait for him. Steve climbs on a bike and drives. He feels the need to see the world, to understand the world.

He hardly makes it to the state line before he turns around.

He needs to be of use. Perhaps the easiest way to adjust is to jump in, to serve, to do what he knows.

So he moves to D.C.

Fury gives him a week to get settled. The day he goes apartment hunting, Natasha Romanoff is waiting for him, leaning sensually against his bike with a smirk on her face that he can't decide is mocking or genuine. "Hey, Cap," she says. "I've got something to show you."

She leads him to an apartment that is perfect. It's in an old building that makes him feel at ease. Red brick. Hardwood floors that shine from age and dip slightly in the middle. The apartment itself is larger than he's ever known but comfortable. Cozy. The kitchen is modern but looks manageable. There is a fire place in the living room and built-in bookshelves along one wall. The windows are single-paned and creak slightly when he opens them.

He makes a deposit that day.

When it's time to move in two days later, Natasha arrives with a moving truck full of furniture. He tries to argue the cost, and she smirks at him and asks why he thinks she bought it. It makes him question the legality of it all. He insists on having the truck go back to the warehouse until Natasha finally cracks and admits that SHIELD gave him an allowance that she happily spent on his behalf.

She directs the movers with military precision until two hours later his apartment is pleasantly furnished. He appreciates it immensely and can't find the words to thank her. He wonders how she could know him so well. She bought him a phonograph instead of a TV. His couch is not so soft that he feels he'll sink to the floor, yet not so firm that it's uncomfortable. The end tables look to be antiques. There are scuff marks around the legs that make him feel more at home. She fills half the bookshelves with books on subjects that he's missed. A single shelf is filled with records of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.

After the apartment is settled, she orders Thai food, something that she insists he'll like, and she sets up his laptop with something called Netflix. They watch a show called _Friends_ until one in the morning.

That's how it starts.

The next week Fury tells him that she's his partner. Natasha becomes one of the few people he can count on to see nearly every day. They function as a surprisingly great team. Their missions are completed flawlessly, and to his surprise, Natasha brings a sense of humor and lightness to the job that reminds him of his Commandos.

After a mission one day, Natasha suddenly turns to him and says, "What do you know about parkour?"

"What?"

"C'mon, Rogers." She calls him "Rogers" now. "You'll be great at it."

They develop a pattern. Between missions, they train. Natasha teaches him parkour, and he _does_ turn out to be quite good. She teaches him different fighting techniques, forces him to learn gymnastics. She wipes the floor with him mercilessly with a now familiar smirk on her face and a ready, "Again, Rogers," on her lips.

She quizzes him on pop culture on weekends when she drags him to a movie or a new restaurant. People at the Triskelion begin to believe that they're dating. Steve waits for Natasha to address the gossip, but she never says anything. Finally, he says, "People think we're dating."

Natasha laughs lowly in her throat. Flirty. "Oh really?" She loops her arms around his waist and tilts her head up to look at him. He can't decide if she's teasing him or not, and his hands settle awkwardly on her hips. "Who do you want me to be?"

He summons his courage. "How about a friend?"

She smirks then, and there's something dark in it that he doesn't like. "Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers."

He doesn't know what that means, but nothing about their relationship changes. There is never anything romantic in their actions, despite the many times Natasha flirts with him or he puts his arm around her when they go out to dinner after a mission.

She's his friend, wrong business or not.

He believes that unquestionably until the Lemurian Star.

* * *

Two: Natasha

She doesn't know why she followed Steve to the exhibit. Part of her is miffed that he managed to find it on his own. She had wanted to take him as a surprise. His reaction would have amused her.

But maybe it was best this way.

She follows him out of the corner of her eye and in the many reflective glass walls that are covered in shiny, silver lettering. President Ellis narrates the exhibit. She listens half-heartedly as she walks around the floor.

 _A symbol to the nation, a hero to the world . . . the story of Captain America is one of honor, bravery, and sacrifice._

Natasha reads each exhibit for information she doesn't already know from his file. There is hardly anything new. The war footage that plays does not draw her eye. She's seen enough of war to know that it never changes.

 _Denied enlistment due to poor health, Steven Rogers was chosen for a program unique in the annals of American warfare, one that would transform him into the world's first Super-Soldier._

There is a holographic projector that shows Steve as he was before the serum. She watches children step up to compare their height to his with wide eyes before their jaws drop when the image morphs into the tall, strong body that she knows. In a rare moment of impulse, she steps up when no one is looking. She's the same height as him, and it gives her pause. She studies his face. Sickly and thin. His nose looks too long for his face, but his eyes are a familiar kind blue. When the picture morphs, she finds his eyes. They're still kind, and she's relieved.

Natasha stops at the roped-off platform where Steve's old motorcycle rests. She debates stealing it for him. Just for a few hours one night. One last ride. She thinks that he'll enjoy it once he gets over the thievery involved.

 _Battle tested, Captain America and his Howling Commandos quickly earned their stripes. Their mission: taking down HYDRA, the Nazi rogue science division._

When Steve suddenly strides forward, she watches him closely. He's blocking her vision, his broad shoulders hiding the wall of etched glass. She watches him read whatever is there and then he simply stares. There's a defeated, sad set to his shoulders that she doesn't like. It's as if there's a weight there that she can't see. She wonders what it could be.

 _Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country._

When Steve moves away, she takes his place. She reads the summary of Sergeant Barnes curiously. None of it rings any bells. She feels sympathy to know he spent years a POW before Steve rescued him, but nothing she reads explains the odd twist in her chest when she stares at his picture.

Barnes is handsome with his chiseled jaw and sharp cheekbones. The picture is in black and white, but her brain fills in the details. He's dark-headed in her mind, the strands soft and fun to grip playfully in her fist. His eyes are blue. She knows in her gut that his eyes are a beautiful, glacial blue.

But something is off about the picture in her mind.

She imagines his hair longer, the scruff on his jaw thicker. She pictures him broader, more muscled, healed from his time in HYDRA's clutches.

And metal. There should be metal.

Natasha stares at the display for a long minute, searching for answers. There's something there in the back of her mind. It's as though she's forgotten something, like it's on the very tip of her tongue but she just can't manage to say it.

Only one thing about the display makes sense to her. Just one word.

 _James._

* * *

Three: Steve

After seeing Peggy, Steve doesn't want to go back to the apartment. Promises of dances owed taste bitter in his mouth. Her dementia is getting worse. He doesn't know how he'll cope when she doesn't remember him at all.

He ends up at the VA.

He walks in and can hear a meeting going on through a set of double doors to his left. The secretary at the front desk smiles at him and says that he's free to go in if he wants. He stays in the doorway instead, his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he surveys the room. There are twenty or so metal folding chairs facing a podium. More than half of the chairs are filled.

Sam Wilson stands behind the podium.

Steve listens as veterans like himself speak about their trouble adjusting to civilian life. He sympathizes with them. He silently hopes that they can find peace away from a battlefield.

Sam comes up to him afterwards with a smile. "Look who it is, the running man."

"Caught the last few minutes," Steve says, glancing into the meeting hall. "It's pretty intense."

"Yeah, brother," Sam shrugs a little, "we all got the same problems." He folds his arms across his chest. "Guilt. Regret."

"You lose someone?"

"My wingman. Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op." Sam shakes his head. "Nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before. Until an RPG knocked Riley's dumb ass out of the sky. It's like I was up there just to watch."

Flickering images of a speeding train and white snow flash through Steve's mind. "I'm sorry," he says.

Sam nods. "After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?"

"But you're happy now," Steve says. "Back in the world?"

Sam looks around pointedly. "The number of people giving me orders is down to about zero." He smiles. "So, hell yeah. Are you thinking about getting out?"

The answer comes thoughtlessly. "No." Steve frowns. "I don't know." He smiles and gives a little, self-deprecating shrug. "To be honest, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I did."

He was built for war, _made_ for war. What else could he do and still help people like he could now?

But Sam grins and suggests, "Ultimate fighting?" Steve nearly laughs. "Just a great idea off the top of my head," Sam continues before sobering, "but seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?"

The answer at one time would have come easily. His mother's banana pancakes. Spending a day roaming the streets with Bucky. A new notebook. Debriefings with Peggy. A night around a fire with the Commandos.

But all of it was gone.

He hates that his answer is, "I don't know."

* * *

Four: the Winter Soldier

He wakes up cold.

The cryogenic chamber is open. No one bothers to help him. He stumbles a little, his limbs stiff, like a puppet whose strings haven't been pulled in a while.

He's dressed head to toe in black, only the left sleeve of his jacket is missing. An arm of metal hangs at his side, embossed with a red Soviet star. The weight of the arm causes him to list to the left until he's no longer disoriented. It doesn't take long.

A scientist clutching an old, red leather-bound book steps forward. The seven armed guards raise their weapons. The Soldier knows that the guns are for him. He is the threat. They fear him.

He doesn't move.

The scientist begins to speak. The Soldier realizes it is Russian.

" _Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car_." Then, " _Soldier_?"

The answer slips from his lips dully. " _Ready to comply_."

A man in a grey suit cuts through the ranks. The leader. In his hand is a file. He holds it out. The Soldier takes it. "I need you to eliminate the Director of SHIELD. Nick Fury. This is your mission."

"My mission," he repeats.

The man motions to the file. "Read it, learn it, burn it. You have twenty-four hours."

Fury gets away. Not entirely unexpected, given the file he'd read, learned, and then burned. The man was a survivor. Cunning. Clever. Adaptable. Ten steps ahead. He was a great spy.

He would make a good asset.

But those were not his orders. His orders were to kill. He had six hours left.

He has someone find the address of the closest SHIELD operative with the highest security clearance. Fury was injured. He wouldn't be able to go far. He would go to someone he trusted.

He finally gets a name. Steve Rogers.

The Soldier sets up his sniper's nest on the opposite roof to Rogers's apartment building. He places an infrared scope on his rifle. He sees Fury sitting in a chair. He needs the man to stand in order to have a clear shot. He waits.

Steve Rogers arrives at the apartment two hours later. He watches with some interest as the man breaks into his own apartment through the window. Perhaps Rogers does not trust Fury? Interesting, but ultimately unimportant.

Fury finally stands. The Soldier takes his shot. Once, twice for good measure.

Rogers chases after him. The Soldier realizes that the Captain is enhanced. A thrill goes through him that he doesn't expect or understand. Something about this is familiar, yet he oddly feels as though he should be the one doing the chasing.

Rogers catches up to him on the roof and throws a shield at him.

He catches it with his metal arm. The impact of metal on metal does not jar him in the slightest. The Soldier holds the shield for a moment. He doesn't understand why. The weight feels familiar, though the red, white, and blue paint means nothing to him.

He shouldn't leave a witness, but there isn't time to deal with Rogers. Priority is escape. He needs to vanish.

He throws back the shield and jumps from the roof.

* * *

Five: Natasha

She's skyping with Clint when she gets the call from Steve.

The drive to the hospital is quick. Easy. She violates thirteen traffic laws and doesn't care about one. She parks in the middle of the street. SHIELD is everywhere. The front entrance to the hospital is blocked off. They've already established a perimeter. She can see the guards patrolling. Black SUVs and SWAT vans are scattered around, opened and abandoned.

She finds the observation lounge in Fury's surgical suite because of the guards stationed outside the doors. They automatically move to let her pass.

She doesn't stop moving until her face is inches from the glass. Fury lies on a gurney, his chest cracked open. A team of doctors and nurses are furiously at work around him. She knows it's bad.

Steve is to her right, his eyes fixed on Fury.

"Is he gonna make it?" she asks.

"I don't know."

When Fury crashes, something in her breaks. _Don't do this to me, Nick_ , she whispers. Pleads. She doesn't plead. _Don't do this to me, don't do this to me, don't do this to me._

Fury is declared dead at 1:03 a.m.

Her eyes water. She can't remember the last time she cried, but she holds her head high and clenches her jaw. Hill leaves the room. She hears the Deputy Director barking orders.

But Steve stays.

She feels his hand wrap around her arm. There's a gentle tug. She allows it. His arms pull her into his chest, and her first thought is that he's warm. One of his hands slides through her hair. She thinks it's accidental, but it feels nice. They've never hugged before, not like this. This meant something. She isn't sure what it is, but it's different. It's new.

She doesn't like new.

Natasha abruptly pulls away and he lets her go. She's pleasantly surprised that Steve knows her well enough to give her space. Eventually she turns to him and says, "Tell me what happened."

She listens as Steve tells her the story. Immediately, she sees holes. She knows him. He's not lying, but he's keeping something to himself. He never says why Fury was at his apartment.

"Tell me about the shooter."

"He's fast. Strong. Had a metal arm."

 _Shit._

"Ballistics?"

"Three slugs," Hill seems to appear out of thin air with the answer, "no rifling."

"Soviet-made."

Hill frowned. "Yeah. What do you know?"

"It was standard practice in the Red Room," she says.

It's the truth, but not the one Hill would want if she knew better. Hill files the information away in her mind. Natasha can practically see it happen. The the Director straightens up and glances at a door down the hall. "You can say goodbye," she says. "If you want."

Natasha needs to see him. Steve follows her but stays against the wall near the door. She's glad. She walks forward, much like before, until she is as close as she can get. Only this time there is no glass wall. She's free to place her hand on Fury's head. It's still slightly warm.

A tear slips before she can catch it. She lets it fall.

Tears are for the weak. That's what she was taught. Tears were a tool to be used to gain sympathy, nothing more. She still feels that is true, for the most part.

But Fury deserves a tear.

Hill breaks the silence. "I need to take him."

Natasha wipes her face but doesn't move. She hears Steve take a step forward. He's at her side in a second. She doesn't want another hug. "Natasha." His voice is soft. Kind. Even after she went behind his back on their last mission.

Their last mission.

There has to be a connection. The flash drive. She needs it.

Time to get to work.

She wipes her tears and stalks out of the room.

"Natasha!"

She turns to find Steve staring at her in concern. "Why was Fury in your apartment?" she asks.

Steve doesn't answer immediately. "I don't know," he says.

Rumlow from the STRIKE team interrupts. "Cap, they want you back at SHIELD."

"Yeah, give me a second."

"They want you now."

Steve's eyes flash in annoyance. He sounds like an exasperated parent when he says, "Okay."

He faces her again, his face a picture of blank innocence. She has to smile. "You're a terrible liar," she says.

She leaves him there in the hallway before he can answer. The debriefing at the Triskelion will likely occupy him for two hours at the very least. It gives her a two-hour head start to find the shooter.

But first she waits.

When she hears the elevator at the end of the hall close, she turns the very same corner and studies the hallway. Orderlies. Nurses. One doctor. The vending machine is closed, the man who was stocking it gone.

Fury had to have been at Steve's apartment with the flash drive. He would have needed someone he knew he could trust. Captain America was the perfect choice.

There are many good hiding places for something so small. She counts ten with just a glance, but all are too . . . spyish.

Steve is a soldier. Smart but impulsive.

Her eyes land on the vending machine. She walks up to the clear glass and scans the rows. There, behind five rows of Hubba Bubba bubblegum, is a familiar silver flash drive. With a sigh, she takes out her wallet. This would cost her $3.75.

* * *

Six: Steve

His meeting with Secretary Pierce leaves him unsettled. Something is off. He knows it in his gut. He feels as if he's a character in a play, as if he's being watched by an audience he can't see because the stage lights are too blinding.

He remembers Fury's message as he steps into the elevator.

 _SHIELD_ _COMPROMISED_. _Don't trust anyone_.

He didn't trust Pierce.

He needs to retrieve the flash drive from the hospital.

The elevator stops. Rumlow enters with two other members of the STRIKE team.

"Operations Control," Rumlow says.

 _Confirmed._

"Keep all STRIKE personnel on site," Rumlow orders the other two.

"Understood."

"Yes, sir."

They descend two more floors before they stop yet again. Two more men step on. "Forensics," one says.

 _Confirmed._

Rumlow turns to him. "Cap."

"Rumlow."

"Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac team ready?"

Steve shakes his head. "No, let's wait and see what it is first."

"Right."

Rumlow always sounds eager, but Steve eyes the man as he shifts his feet. He's never known Rumlow to be antsy.

The elevator stops again. Two more people get on, and Steve's eyes narrow ever so slightly as he steps forward away from the wall. He might need the room.

"I'm sorry about what happened with Fury," Rumlow says. "It's messed up, what happened to him."

Steve's voice has a thread of steel in it as he answers, "Thank you."

When the elevator stops yet again, three more members of the STRIKE team get on the elevator, supposedly going to Records.

Steve glances around. A dozen agents, half of them STRIKE . . . and they just happen to be in the elevator. With him.

He hears Fury in his head again.

 _Don't trust anyone._

The elevator begins to descend.

"Before we get started," Steve says, "does anyone want to get out?"

* * *

Seven: Sharon

She's getting a report when Sitwell strides into Operations Control.

"Eyes here," he orders. A picture of Steve appears on the screen. "Whatever your op is, bury it. This is Level One. Contact DOT. All traffic lights in the district go red. Shut all runways at BWI, IAD, and Reagan. All security cameras in the city go through this monitor right here. Scan all open sources: phones, computers, PDAs. Whatever. If someone tweets about this guy, I want to know about it."

Sharon's stomach tightens. "With all due respect, if SHIELD is conducting a manhunt for Captain America, we deserve to know why," she says.

She doesn't expect Secretary Pierce to stride into the room, as if he was waiting on a cue. "Because he lied to us," he says. "Captain Rogers has information regarding the death of Director Fury. He refused to share it." He sighs, as if burdened. Sharon doesn't believe him. "As difficult as this is to accept, Captain America is a fugitive from SHEILD."

Pierce leaves as quickly and quietly as he entered. Sitwell snaps at them to get to work, but Sharon does not move. She watches. More than half of the techs at their computers hesitate. They all look around, tentatively meet each other's gazes. No one wants to be the first to treat Captain America as a criminal.

But eventually people start to move. Searches are started. Traffic cameras are pulled.

Sharon takes her file and leaves.

Fury had assigned her to protect Steve. As far as she's concerned, that is still her first priority. She takes out her phone and calls Agent Hill.

* * *

Eight: Natasha

Her search for the shooter leads her nowhere. She does not reach out to any resources at SHIELD. Fury obviously had doubts. It's best that she trust his instincts. She's never known the man to be wrong.

Unfortunately, without SHIELD her sources are not limited, per se, but time is a factor. One that she decidedly does not have. To call in favors takes time. She hacks shipping manifests and private flight manifests looking for Russian transport that arrived within the last forty-eight hours. Two private business planes, a handful of cargo ships. She looks at the cargo ships first.

One lists 147 crates on the manifest. The ship docked with 146.

Of course they would ship him as freight.

The thought angers her more than she thinks it should.

She goes to the docks, interrogates one of the workers. He tells her that one of the crates was picked up by a truck. It turned right at the light. He didn't see where it went from there.

She hacks traffic cameras next, but the camera on 24th is down and she loses the trail. She thinks he's somewhere in the older part of D.C., but her search area is still too big.

And she's out of time.

The hospital is clear of SHIELD when she returns. The building almost seems abandoned without agents roaming the halls. She finds the hallway and waits for Steve, popping a piece of gum in her mouth. The observation lounge is still open and she leans against the wall and tries to blow the biggest bubble she can without it exploding in her face.

Natasha only waits for fifteen minutes before Steve shows up to retrieve the drive. He's out of uniform, in clothes that he couldn't have picked out himself. His shoes are a little big, the jeans the wrong style, and she's never seen him in a zip-up hoodie. He looks as if he's on the run.

Fun.

When he stands in front of the vending machine and stares blankly at the glass, she steps forward and blows a bubble. His eyes snap to hers in the reflective glass. For the first time there's real anger in his eyes.

Her bubble pops when he roughly grabs her arms and pushes her into the observation lounge. Her back meets the wall and he towers over her, using every inch of his body to intimidate her. It doesn't work, of course, but she's surprised. She hadn't expected him to have a temper.

"Where is it?" he demands.

"Safe."

His grip on her arms tightens. "Do better."

"Where did you get it?"

"Why would I tell you?"

Her eyes narrow. "Fury gave it to you," she says. "Why?"

"What's on it?"

"I don't know."

His jaw clenches. He looks as if he needs to hit something, but he only pushes her deeper into the wall. "Stop lying," he hisses.

She's surprised when she feels a hint of hurt. Her voice hardens. "I only act like I know everything, Rogers."

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"

"Well, it makes sense," she says, thinking it through. "The ship was dirty. Fury needed a way in, so do you."

Steve's grip becomes nearly painful. "I'm not gonna ask you again," he threatens.

And he means it. She sees it in his eyes. She needs him to trust her, and so she offers an olive branch. "I know who killed Fury," she says.

It does the trick. His hands on her arms slacken, but there's the briefest squeeze that feels like an apology before he lets go. She meets his eyes openly. It's difficult for her. She wasn't taught to be honest, but she manages. It's Steve. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists," she explains. "The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last _fifty_ years."

Steve's eyes narrow. "So he's a ghost story."

"Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out." She swallows. "But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer so he shot him," she lifts the bottom her shirt, "straight through me." The scar just above her hip is an inch wide, the skin pink and puckered. "Soviet slug. No rifling." She smirks a little. "Bye-bye, bikinis."

Steve stares at the scar and then meets her eyes. There's the slightest hint of a truce in his voice when he says, "Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now."

"Going after him is a dead end," she says. "I know, I've tried." She offers up the flash drive between them. "Like I said, he's a ghost story."

Steve takes the flash drive. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants."

* * *

Nine: Natasha

"First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk."

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off."

The mall has a decent crowd for a weekday afternoon. Natasha is glad for it. There are just enough people to blend in with the crowd while still keeping a clear eye on any potential tails. Steve walks beside her, his shoulders a bit too tense as he resists the urge to look over his shoulder. She takes his hand.

It shocks him, but he settles down.

"The drive has a Level Six homing program," she explains as they enter the Apple store and find a laptop. "So as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are."

"How much time will we have?"

"About nine minutes from," she plugs in the drive, "now."

Data runs across the screen. Natasha reads with in an increasing frown. She types a few commands and hisses in annoyance when they are immediately countered. "Fury was right about that ship," she says, still typing. "Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

Steve leans over her shoulder. "Can you override it?"

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," she admits reluctantly. "Slightly." She thinks quickly. Her fingers begin to fly over the keyboard. "I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware. So, if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."

"Can I help you guys with anything?"

Both of them look up. A worker as tall as Steve with hippie-length blond hair stands next to him with a ready smile. Natasha grabs Steve's arm with both hands and nuzzles his shoulder. She giggles. "No, my fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations."

Her laugh is genuine but internal when Steve awkwardly says, "Right. We're getting married."

"Congratulations," the worker says. "Where are you guys thinking about going?"

Steve glances at the screen. The proud New Yorker in him dies a little when he says, "New Jersey."

The worker nods and then suddenly smiles and points at Steve's face. Steve prepares to bolt if the man recognizes him, but instead he hears, "I have the exact same glasses."

Glasses? Steve forgot he was wearing them. Natasha had grabbed them off a stand.

Behind him, he can hear the smirk in Natasha's voice as she says, "Wow, you two are practically twins."

"Yeah, I wish," the worker says. He gestures to Steve. "Specimen."

Steve purses his lips.

"If you guys need anything," he held up his name tag, "I've been Aaron."

"Thank you."

Steve turns to Natasha as soon as Aaron is out of earshot. "You said nine minutes," he says. "C'mon."

Natasha isn't worried in the slightest. "Relax." A second later she triangulates the signal. "Got it." She feels Steve tense beside her and looks at him over her shoulder. He stares at the screen as though he's trapped in a memory. "You know it?" she assumes.

"I used to," he says simply before taking the drive. "Let's go."

They're almost at the escalators when Steve spots the STRIKE team. "Standard tac team," he says. "Two behind, two across, and two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro."

Natasha had spotted the team as well, but she only loops her arm around his waist. "Shut up and put your arm around me," she says. "Laugh at something I said."

"What?"

"Do it."

He does. His laugh sounds terribly fake, but the STRIKE member walks right by them. Steve can't help but turn to look around in surprise until Natasha's grip on his waist tightens like a reprimand. "We make a good couple," she says with a smirk.

"I'll take you out to dinner after this."

"Charmer."

She thinks that they'll make it out without a problem until they're on the escalator and she looks across to see Brock Rumlow slowly climbing toward them. He doesn't see them, not yet. She doesn't have much time. She turns around to face Steve with demanding eyes.

"Kiss me," she orders.

His eyes widen. "What?"

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

"Yes," he agrees innocently. "They do."

She grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him toward her. Their lips meet stiffly at first. He's shocked. She can feel him hesitate as he wonders where to put his hands. They finally settle at her waist when he begins to kiss her back. There's something to the kiss that feels familiar. She doesn't understand why. It feels ageless and strong. She pulls away when she's sure Rumlow has passed them.

She smirks when Steve blinks owlishly. "You still uncomfortable?" she teases as she steps off the escalator.

Steve immediately falls into step beside her. "That's not exactly the word I would use."

They steal a Chevy truck from the parking garage. Steve doesn't hesitate in his direction. He knows where they're going, and she is content to sit in the passenger seat and let her mind drift. She stares out the window as she thinks about the kiss.

She's entertained the thought of a relationship. There's attraction. She admires him, has always been drawn to his goodness like a moth to a flame. He makes her want to be better.

But she did nothing, in the end. The longer she spends with him, the more certain she becomes that they are best as they are. Friends.

One might say best friends.

She's never had a best friend before. Clint doesn't count. He's family.

But the kiss keeps playing on repeat in her mind. She doesn't understand why. The thought that she shouldn't have had to reach quite so far enters her mind. The hands on her waist should have been tighter. But that doesn't make sense. That isn't Steve.

She needs a distraction. "Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?"

Steve smiles a little. "Nazi Germany." He glances across the console. "And we're borrowing," he says. "Take your feet off the dash."

Natasha smirks but complies. "Alright, I have a question for you," she says, "which you don't have to answer. I feel like, if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?"

She smiles. "Was that your first kiss since 1945?"

Steve raises his eyebrows. "That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying."

"No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you've had."

"You don't need practice."

"Everyone needs practice."

"It was not my first kiss since 1945," Steve says, fighting a smile and shaking his head. "I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead."

Natasha knows what it's like to be alone. She's been alone far longer than anyone knows, and she wonders sometimes what would happen if she told Steve the whole truth. He's the only person who would understand. "Nobody special, though?" she asks.

"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."

If only he knew.

"Well, that's alright," she says. "You just make something up."

"What? Like you?"

There's no judgement in his tone. She appreciates that. "I don't know," she says with a shrug. "The truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people all the time. Neither am I."

"That's a tough way to live."

"It's a good way not to die, though."

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."

She hates that he doubts her, even a little. She wants his trust like she's wanted very few things in her life. "Yeah," she says. "Who do you want me to be?"

He smiles a little and answers like he did a year ago. "How about a friend?"

She knows what she's supposed to say. He might be in the wrong business. He _is_ in the wrong business. But she can't say it. Not this time. Because she wants to be his friend. He wants to be her friend. Captain America, Steve Rogers—the epitome of all that is good—wants to be her friend.

What could he possibly see in her?

So she smiles a little and says, "I've never really had many friends."

And Steve smiles back. "Me either."

* * *

Ten: Steve

Pulling up to the gates of Camp Lehigh brings on a sense of déjà vu. The chains on the gates are rusty. He's able to break them with his bare hands, and he pauses to marvel at the difference in himself. He knows he's the same man who arrived here in 1943. He also knows he's very different.

Natasha follows quietly behind him, her eyes on her phone as she checks the signal. "This is it," she confirms. "The file came from these coordinates."

"So did I."

Steve examines the now dilapidated buildings that were new the last time he'd seen them. There are cracks like open wounds in the concrete. The grass is either scraggly or dead. It looks haunted. Forgotten.

It makes him feel old.

"This camp is where I was trained," he says.

"Change much?"

"A little."

He can see himself running after his unit, always bringing up the rear by ten or so yards. He can hear his Drill Sergeant clearly. _Pick up the pace ladies! Let's go, let's go! Double time! C'mon, Rogers! Move it! C'mon, fall in! Rogers! I said fall in!_

"This is a dead end." Natasha's voice jolts him out of the memory. "Zero heat signatures." She shakes her head as she looks at her phone. "Zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."

Steve's eyes pause over a munitions building. He doesn't remember it being there. Natasha notices. "What is it?" she asks.

He strides toward the building. She hurries to follow. "Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place."

There's a lock on the door, but a sharp hit with his shield snaps it easily. Steve pushes the doors open only to stop in surprise once he realizes just where he's walked into. Desks are spaced evenly throughout the room. They sit as if they'd just been left over a lunch break. Typewriters are out. Papers and files are still stacked neatly.

And on the far wall is a familiar symbol.

"This is SHIELD," Natasha says. She turns in a circle, her eyes surveying every detail. "Maybe where it started."

They round the corner of a narrow hallway. Hanging on the wall are three pictures of three important people. Steve stares at each of them in turn, his eyes lingering on the last. Natasha stares, too. "There's Stark's father," she says, pointing to the one in the middle. "Howard." She sees Steve staring and eyes the picture in question. "Who's the girl?"

Steve doesn't for a second think that Natasha doesn't know that it's Peggy. She's searching for a reaction. He wonders why she doesn't simply ask, and then thinks that perhaps she doesn't understand that she can.

A whistle reaches his ear. He glances at Natasha to see if she can hear it, but she only meets his eyes curiously. He strides down the hall and then comes to a stop in front of a stack of shelves. By the way Natasha's eyes narrow, he knows she can hear it now, too.

It takes a good tug to get the shelf loose. He plants his feet and then pulls. It takes more of his strength than he's used to, and it feels good to stretch his muscles. Once the wheels are greased the shelf moves easily to reveal an old elevator.

"If you're already working in a secret office, why do you need to hide the elevator?" he asks.

The elevator ride down is rickety, and Natasha glances at him. "This thing falls on us, you can get us out, right?" she asks.

Steve smiles a little. "I'll give it my best, ma'am."

"Oh, you didn't."

The elevator stops, and Steve raises the door. Natasha is the first to step out. She frowns at her surroundings. They're in what feels like a large basement. Thousands of rolls of tape straight from the seventies take up the majority of the cavernous space.

There's a large central hub in the center of the room on a raised platform. She shakes her head. "This can't be the data point," she says as she examines the computers. It may as well be a cardboard box. "This technology is ancient."

But her eyes land on something decidedly new age. A USB port sits on the desk. She glances at Steve and then plugs in the drive. A heavy hum echoes throughout the basement, like an old engine revving. The computer screen flickers on, asking to run a program.

"Y-E-S spells _yes_ ," she says and then smiles a little and adds, "Shall we play a game?" She glances back at Steve, who doesn't look impressed, and says, "It's from a movie that was really—"

"I know," Steve says. "I saw it."

"With who?"

"Jealous, Romanoff?"

"You should be so lucky, Rogers."

A computerized voice that sounds eerily familiar to Steve interrupts. "Rogers, Steven. Born 1918." The camera mounted on the main computer slowly turns to Natasha. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984."

Natasha backs away from the computer. "It's some sort of recording."

"I am not a recording, Fraulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am."

Steve can feel her eyes on him as she asks, "You know this thing?"

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." Steve steps off the platform and begins to circle around the back of the computers, as if expecting Zola himself to pop out from the wires. Natasha wonders if he subconsciously simply wants to get away. "He's been dead for years," he says, his voice firm but his eyes wary.

"First correction: I am Swiss," Zola says. "Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving on 200,000 feet of data banks." He sounds smug. Steve hates it. "You are standing in my brain."

Steve is standing once again on the platform facing Zola's grainy, computerized face. "How did you get here?" he demands.

"Invited."

Steve frowns. Natasha doesn't take her eyes off of the computer as she explains. "It was Operation Paperclip," she says. "After World War II SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola brags. "I also helped my own."

A sick feeling settles in Steve's gut. "HYDRA died with the Red Skull."

"Cut off one head," the screen suddenly split into three faces, "two more shall take its place."

Steve's eyes hardened. "Prove it."

"Accessing archive." Footage began to play on the screen to the left. It was old war footage, reels of Steve on the battlefield with the Commandos. "HYDRA was founded based on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was if you take that freedom, they resist."

Steve stares at the footage of himself. He looks different, and it's more than the 40s hair and old uniform. He thinks he looks young.

"The war taught us much," Zola continues. "Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war ended SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD." The news reels changed from war footage to riots and case files stamped with _deceased_ notices. "For seventy years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

Clippings from Howard Stark's death fill the screens. Images of casefiles. A glimpse of a Soviet star. Then Fury's picture appears. _Deceased._

"That's impossible," Natasha insists. She needs it to be impossible. "SHIELD would have stopped you."

"Accidents will happen." More casefiles of those HYDRA has killed appear on screen. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that it is finally willing to sacrifice its freedom to ensure its security. Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain." Steve clenches his jaw. "Your death amounts to the same as your life, a zero sum."

When Steve's fist collides with the screen, Natasha jumps. A friend would say something comforting, only she has no idea what to say and hardly the time anyway.

Zola is not bothered by the broken screen. His face merely appears on the one adjacent. "As I was saying—"

Steve steps forward. "What's on this drive?" he demands.

"Project Insight requires insight," Zola says. "I wrote an algorithm."

"Algorithm?" Natasha repeats sharply. "What kind of algorithm? What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you will be too dead to hear it."

Steve turns and throws his shield. The doors to the elevator just manage to close. His shield ricochets back to him. Natasha stares in disbelief at the blinking red dot on her phone slowly arching toward their location. "Steve, we've got a bogey," she says. "Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops."

Steve looks just as incredulous. "Who fired it?"

"SHIELD."

"I'm afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola interrupts gleefully. "Admit it, it is better this way." Steve looks frantically around the room. His eyes land on a grate that he rips open with one hand and throws away as if it's nothing. Usually he checks his strength. Now is not the time. He holds out an arm to Natasha. She already running toward him. "We are, both of us, out of time."

Natasha slams into his side, and he picks her up in one arm and jumps into the hole from the grate. As they're falling, the missile hits. Steve has just enough time to throw up his shield over them before the rubble begins to fall. Giant chucks of concrete pelt him. His entire body burns under the strain of the weight that continues to _build_ and _build_ and _build_ until his knees threaten to give out.

He knows when Natasha falls unconscious because her grip on his shirt loosens and her head drops from his chest to his thigh. He wants to panic but he doesn't have the luxury.

 _Stay on your feet, Rogers_. _Stay on your feet._

The weight finally settles. The roar in his ears begins to fade. He coughs and regrets it. The rubble shifts and he groans. He can't breathe. The air is dust and rock. It burns his lungs.

But he takes a deep breath anyway, and then he pushes back.

He forces his legs to straighten as he stands. The rubble shifts again, but this time in his favor. It falls away. He can hear it. The weight on his back lessens. He can see Natasha now, curled in a ball at his feet. He's never seen her look so small.

He pushes up again. There's a final hunk of concrete, easily five hundred pounds that he throws away with a loud grunt. He's in open air now. It tastes like ash and fire. He turns back to help Natasha and finds her awake, struggling to crawl out of the hole. He hauls her into his arms and takes comfort in the loose grip of her hand in the collar of his shirt.

The whirl of helicopter blades grows louder. Dogs bark. He has little time. A spotlight is already scouring the ground.

He tightens his grip on Natasha and runs for the trees.

* * *

Eleven: Natasha

She wakes up in an old pickup.

Her entire body aches. She coughs and it tastes like dust. Only when her pillow begins to move does she realize that it's Steve. He moves his arm from around her shoulders and hands her a bottle of water. She takes a sip before she asks, "Where are we?"

"Taking the long way back to D.C.," he says. "We're a few hours out."

"What happened?"

"I pulled us out just as SHIELD," he clenches his jaw and shakes his head, " _HYDRA_ showed up. STRIKE team was there. We know for sure they're compromised." He glances at her. "I picked you up and ran for it. As far as I can tell, they haven't picked up a trail."

She nods. "Good."

They drive for a while in silence. Natasha thinks it's Steve allowing her time to regroup and collect her thoughts. She's grateful. She has a lot to think about.

That SHIELD is HYDRA floors her. She makes a point to never be surprised. She's trained to see through smokescreens and lies. But this? This she can hardly believe.

There are a lot of things it means for her, ramifications that she knows she will have to address, but she shoves them aside to deal with smaller fare.

She focuses on the fact that she should be dead.

She's creative. She's the best. She's managed to save herself from certain death more times than she cares to remember. But the bunker? She wouldn't have made it out, not without Steve.

She owes him, but it's more than that. She remembers running toward him. She remembers curling into him as the bunker collapsed, trusting him to save her. She trusts him with her life. Not because she knows it's in his character to do so, because she knows that he's kind and selfless and too damn good. She trusts him because he's her friend.

And that's new. That's different.

She looks at him in the reflection of the windshield. He's exhausted. And she can tell by the way that he grips the wheel with his left hand instead of his right that his shield arm must be sore. She gives in to the urge to prod at him. Steve only glances her way before returning his eyes to the road.

"I'm fine, Nat," he says. "Just a bit banged up." She presses on his right shoulder and he winces. "That's not nice."

"You'll live."

He smiles a little, and she smiles back.

"Thanks for the concern," he says.

The drive passes in silence. Natasha wonders if they should discuss their plan and realizes that she has no clue what to do. Where did they go for intel? Who at SHIELD could be trusted? How were they going to stop Project Insight?

She eventually drifts in her thoughts. She twists so that her back is to the door and her legs are stretched across the seats. Steve doesn't say anything when her feet end up in his lap. His hand rests on her shin, and she finds its warmth comforting. It's safety. It's trust. She trusts him.

"So, who's James?"

She blinks. "What?"

"You were talking in your sleep." He looks away from the road to smirk at her. "It was kinda cute, actually."

She scoffs. "I'm not cute."

She hopes he'll fall into their usual banter and forget his question. He doesn't. "So," he says. "You got a boyfriend I don't know about?"

"No," she says. "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."

Steve smiles a little and shakes his head as she feeds his words back to him. But then he looks at her, truly curious but sympathetic. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he says.

"No, I . . ." Natasha stares at him as if he knows the answer, but he can only stare back with a slowly growing frown. "I don't know," she admits.

"You don't know?"

Natasha's brow furrows. Her eyes drift to stare sightlessly into the night. The white dividing line in the road is almost hypnotizing. "I think I was dreaming," she says. "I don't know if it was real."

"What was the dream?"

"It wasn't a good dream."

"Sorry. I'll stop asking."

But she shakes her head. "It was cold," she says. "I was . . . scared. I think it was the Red Room. There was someone with me."

"James?"

"I don't know." A flash of cold blue eyes appears in her mind. She shivers. "I can't remember."

"Maybe it's for the best."

"Probably."

They stop on the outskirts of town at an old gas station. Natasha flips through a phone book to find the address that they need, and then an hour later they're on Sam Wilson's back doorstep. She stands there tensely as she waits for Wilson to answer the door. She trusts Steve, trusts his instincts, but she's had too many lies dealt to her in the past twenty-four hours not to be suspicious.

Sam slides open the glass door. He still as a sheen of sweat on his skin from his morning run. "I'm sorry about this," Steve says. "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," she adds.

She watches Sam look them up and down, taking in their torn clothes and dirt-smudged faces. She's surprised and yet not when he moves aside and gestures for them to come in, "Not everyone."

"Thanks, Sam," Steve says again. "We wouldn't be here if there was any other choice."

"Oh, so I'm just a last resort?" Sam grins and Steve laughs tiredly. When Sam's eyes drift over to her his grin softens and he says, "There's a shower off the guest bedroom. Down the hall to your right."

"Thanks."

She takes Sam's offer of a shower to heart and spends at least five minutes simply standing beneath the hot spray. She watches the dirt spiral down the drain and slowly feels her aches fade into a bone-dead tiredness. She washes her hair and then dries herself quickly. Steve's set one of her many go-bags she has stashed throughout the city on the bed. This one had come from a bus station locker.

She dresses quickly and then sits on the bed and begins to towel dry her hair. And she finds it amusing, that it's in this moment that the reality of her situation hits. There's nothing in particular that sparks the thought, but suddenly it's just there. HYDRA is SHIELD.

 _What has she done?_

Steve comes in then after a knock on the door. "Feeling better?" he asks as he pulls his shirt over his head. His white undershirt is still stained with dirt, but he doesn't seem to care.

"Clean, at least," she says. She watches him wet a washcloth that he runs over his arms and over his face. "No shower for you? I didn't know that serum of yours also made you smell like daises."

"Haha." He folds the washcloth over the sink. She represses a smirk. "I just thought I'd let the water heat back up. I remember Brussels."

"C'mon, it was one time."

"You could've warned me."

"But then I wouldn't know that Captain America can scream like a little girl."

Steve grins and shakes his head in a pathetic denial. But when he looks at her again, his eyes are serious and concerned. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

Steve isn't willing to let her off easy. It's one of the rare times when he's willing to push her. "What's going on?" he asks.

She looks down at the towel in her hands and picks at a thread before meeting his eyes. "When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded the KGB for HYDRA." A cynical smile twists her lips. "I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

She expects for him to say something comforting. Placating. _You didn't know. It's not your fault. You did your job._

But Steve gets a little smile on his face, and his eyes sparkle with a hint of humor as he says, "Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business."

She almost laughs, but she can't. He seems to understand. She stares at him, searching. She wonders why he insists on being her friend. She knows that he read her file. He _knows_. But he's never once brought it up, almost as if he didn't care at all. He treats her as if she's deserving of trust.

And she trusts him. In the bunker, she'd thrown all her eggs in one basket. She'd put all her faith in him to save her. She'd trusted him with her life. Completely.

"I owe you," she says.

Steve shakes his head. "It's okay."

"If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life—now you be honest with me—would you trust me do it?"

"I would now."

She searches his face for the lie. It's not there.

He trusts her.

Steve Rogers trusts _her_.

He must see her shock, because he flashes her that little smirk of his that she wonders if anyone knows exists, and says, "And I'm always honest."

* * *

Twelve: Winter Soldier

Two targets, level six. Jasper Sitwell and Natasha Romanoff.

He finds Sitwell first. The man is HYDRA but a liability. Or so he's told.

It is convenient that Romanoff is with Sitwell. He isn't sure why. Perhaps she's defected. She's always known how to survive.

The thought gives him pause. He doesn't know where it came from.

He focuses on his mission.

His plan is executed on the highway. It's busy, it's messy, but it's contained. There is little where for them to go.

He climbs out of the passenger window of the SUV and balances on the hood. When he's close enough, he jumps. Sitwell is dealt with easily. He grips the roof with his flesh hand and breaks through the glass of the backseat window with his metal hand. One good fling and Sitwell flies across three lanes of traffic to collide with the side of a truck.

One down.

He climbs onto the roof of the car and fires once into the headrest of the passenger seat. As soon as he pulls the trigger, he knows that he's missed. He expects to miss the second time, too, and he does.

It irritates him.

He doesn't understand.

The driver slams on the breaks and the Soldier loses his balance. He flies forward off the car and turns in the air, landing in a crouch and bracing himself with his metal arm. His silver fingers dig into the asphalt.

He sees them then. Romanoff is in Rogers's lap. The driver sits with both hands clutching the wheel. They stare at each other, stalled in the middle of daytime traffic. Cars swerve around them. Neither he nor the car moves until a HYDRA SUV slams into the vehicle from behind.

The Soldier still does not move. Instead, he jumps just before he's hit, flips in the air, and lands on the hood of the car. Much like he'd done with Sitwell, the Soldier smashes through the window with his metal arm, grabs the wheel, and yanks.

The wheel sails across traffic, but he's already moving. He expects the shots milliseconds before they come. One misses his foot by half an inch. The other he avoids by jumping onto the hood of the SUV behind them. The car is rammed again, and without any way to steer, it smashes into the median and then barrel rolls.

But Rogers is prepared.

He punches out the door and uses it as a sled. Romanoff is tucked into him. The driver clings to the sled for a hundred feet before losing his grip. He rolls away.

Rogers and Romanoff continue to slide forward even as the SUV quickly overtakes them. Both agents are on their feet by the time he leaps from the SUV, raises his grenade launcher, and fires. Rogers pushes Romanoff away, raises his shield, and takes the hit. He flies over the edge of the overpass.

The Soldier does not care. His target is Romanoff.

There's a firefight. He fires another grenade at the van she's taken cover behind, but he knows she's faster. She dives over the median and weaves through cars with ease. He waits until he has a shot. She disappears behind a truck and he fires again. The truck explodes.

But when the flame clears, she's nowhere.

Grappling hook. Of course. Always prepared, his little ballerina.

He's so absorbed in his mission that he doesn't recognize the thought or what it means.

He walks to the edge of the overpass and waits, a machine gun tucked into his shoulder and pointing downward. He can hear her running. She's not so stupid. She must know that he's waiting.

She fires first.

The first shot whistles through his hair. The second hits his goggles.

He ducks down and rips off the cracked lens. Anger. Frustration. He seethes.

When he shoots to his feet, he fires blindly. Thirty rounds hit the concrete below, but she's already behind a truck. She empties both of her clips, and then she's running. She does not deviate in her direction. She's a target. She's making it easier for him.

She's daring him.

Of course she is.

He turns to his men. " _She's mine_ , _find him._ "

He jumps from the overpass and leaves a deep dent in the hood of an abandoned car. While she runs, he does not. He walks.

He takes no heed to the dozens of people scrambling to get away. Abandoned cars are scattered in the middle of the road. He fires a grenade at an approaching police car. It explodes in a loud ball of flame.

The air is filled with screams and gunfire. It's chaos, but the Soldier does not hear it. He listens for her. He knows she's close. She's waiting. He hears her voice then and stops.

Green van.

He quietly rolls a grenade under the vehicle.

As soon as it explodes, she attacks him from behind.

She kicks his gun from his hands as she lands on his shoulders and spins, digging her heels into his hips for balance before she rips out a zip wire. He gets a hand up before it hits his throat. The wire digs into his gloved hand. He slams her back into a car to try to shake her. She only pulls harder. He reaches up with his metal arm and grabs the back of her jacket. He throws her into a car. She's on her feet in the next second, just as he raises his gun.

She throws a disk at him. It sparks blue before it hits his metal arm. A zap of electricity shoots into his shoulder that's still flesh. It burns. His arm drops uselessly to his side. She uses the spare second to run.

He follows, rotating his metal arm sharply.

It's familiar, this dance.

She runs in a straight line, making herself an easy target yet again. It strikes him as out of character. She's not challenging him. She's protecting civilians from stray bullets.

Strange.

He waits until he knows he has a clear shot. She's waving at people, urging them to take cover. It inhibits her speed. She's much faster than that.

He raises his gun. He won't miss.

He aims center mass.

And so he doesn't understand why, at the very last second, he suddenly twitches. The shot goes high and wide into her shoulder.

Why?

She was his mission, and he didn't miss.

Why?

She takes cover behind a car. He knows she'll expect him to set up a shot from the right. There's a clear line of sight. It's logical.

He makes a line of sight instead.

She hears him behind her when he leaps onto the hood of a car. She turns like he expected. Her eyes widen. She's scared of him.

His finger caresses the trigger.

And then Rogers appears, shield raised, and the Soldier is distracted.

The fight is a fluid but violent dance. Rogers matches him blow for blow. The man is just as fast and just as strong as the Soldier. His metal arm offers him no real advantage. A sense of competition fills him. It's familiar. When a punch connects with his jaw, there's the strangest flash of pride. He feels like proud teacher.

Rogers momentarily gets the upper hand. He slams his shield into the Soldier's metal arm, nearly slicing it halfway through. He turns and flips the shield up. It smacks the Soldier in the face. Then Rogers reaches back, grabs him by the mask, and flips him over his shoulder.

The Soldier rolls to his feet, but his mask lies on the ground behind him.

He breathes the fresh air. It's new. It's different.

Something in him, something very, very quiet, rejoices.

He turns. Rogers stares at him in shock.

"Bucky?"

Confusion hits him like a bullet to the brain. He blinks. _Bucky_. What did it mean? Something, something important. A name. Yes, a name.

He stares at Rogers.

Steve.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" he asks.

There's no thought to the question. It slips from him without prompt, but there's a sense of urgency in it. He stares at Rogers. _Steve_. His name is Steve.

He knows him.

But he doesn't.

He has a mission.

He raises his gun, but realizes he doesn't want to fire.

Why?

In the end, it doesn't matter. Romanoff picks up his discarded grenade launcher and fires. She never gives up, his Natalia.

He disappears in the smoke and flame.

His orders are to return to base, and he does not hesitate in his direction.

But he does think the entire way there. He thinks of the Brooklyn Dodgers and ballet bars. Both images fill him with warmth.

Only he has no idea why.

* * *

Thirteen: Natasha

She knows him.

The Winter Soldier. Bucky.

She doesn't remember how she knows him, but she knows in her gut that she does. Blood seeps from her wound. That's the second time he's shot her. Both times he could have killed her, only he didn't. She doesn't understand why.

Natasha tries to remember, but it's difficult with the bouncing truck jostling her and the blood loss making her dizzy. Her dream. She's dreamed about him before, she thinks. Memories of cold metal and hot flesh that slip away after she wakes.

"He looked right at me." Her eyes lift to look across the truck at Steve. He sits in steel restraints. They're not needed. He simply sits and stares sightlessly at the floor. "He looked right at me," he repeats. "Like he didn't even know me."

"How is that even possible?" Sam asks. He sits beside her and keeps darting glances at her bloody shoulder. "It was like, seventy years ago."

"Zola," Steve says. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did must've helped Bucky survive the fall." His face tightened. "They must have found him and . . ."

"It's not your fault, Steve," she says.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

When Maria Hill reveals herself as one of the guards, Natasha is pleasantly surprised. She can't summon much more than that. In fact, she wants nothing more than to go to sleep, but Sam keeps telling her not to and it begins to annoy her. Thankfully, once Hill frees Steve from his restraints, he takes Sam's place.

They jump one right after the other when Hill cuts out a hole in the floor of the truck. The baton looks more like a lightsaber, and Natasha wonders why she doesn't have one. The drop to the ground jars her shoulder, but Steve is there pulling her up. He doesn't carry her, even though he looks like he wants to, but she stubbornly sets her jaw and walks to the van Hill hid in an alley.

Everyone piles in and it's a quiet ride. Hill takes them across the river to the middle of nowhere. They finally arrive at some sort of underground bunker, and a doctor jogs down a long concrete hallway. Sam says something about blood loss, but Hill says, "She'll want to see him first."

Him.

They're led further into the compound and there he is, lying in a hospital bed but very much alive. Fury. He looks at her first and she thinks she sees a sparkle of something close to fond in his eye. Then it's gone and he gives her the one-liner she expects, "Well, it's about damn time."

She listens to his explanation as the doctor works on her shoulder. Tetrodetoxin B. Slows the heartrate to one beat per minute. Banner developed it for stress with little success. That SHIELD found a use for it doesn't surprise her.

Steve disappears once everyone finally settles down. She wants to follow him but waits for her stitches. Once she's patched up, she ignores orders for rest, takes a water bottle, and goes to find him. He's outside standing on a bridge. Perhaps they're at an abandoned dam. His hands are in his pockets as he stares ahead. She wonders what he sees. She knows it's not the dried up riverbed or the trees.

He hears her coming. She knows he does, but he doesn't show any sign. When she stops next to him, closer than she would've allowed only a day ago, he asks, "You good?"

"Yeah," she says. "Are you?"

"No," he says honestly. He looks at her then. "Did you know?"

For a second she's insulted. Hurt. He'd said only hours ago that he trusted her. But she shakes away the feeling. She knows he has to ask. "No," she says.

She wants to say that if she _had_ known, she would've said something. She wants to tell him that she would've helped him get his brother back, because she knows that's what Bucky means to him. She wants to think that she would be that honest, but she knows that if telling him meant compromising him, she wouldn't have said a word.

He smiles weakly at her, as though he understands where her mind has gone, but he asks nothing more of her. They stand in silence for a long while before she asks, "Why do you call him Bucky?" Her lips twist slightly. "Doesn't seem like the best nickname."

Steve laughs tiredly. There's a hint of relief in it, and she feels proud of her question because she knows it's the very last one he expected her to ask. "You might be right about that," he says. "But Buck didn't mind it. Only his mother ever called him James."

 _James._

The name bounces around her skull, louder and louder until it gives her a sharp headache. It feels like a wrecking ball slamming into a wall in her mind.

 _James_.

She knew him.

She glances at Steve. She should tell him. She knows that she should. He trusts her, and she trusts him.

But now isn't the time.

"He doesn't remember me, Nat." Steve looks away from her, back toward the trees. "Who knows what HYDRA's done to him."

"It's not your fault, Steve."

He scoffs. "I should've looked for him."

"You couldn't have known he'd survive. No one could have."

"I could have," he says. "I should've insisted he get tests done after we got him back. I should've talked to Howard. I just made sure that medical cleared him."

"You couldn't have known, Steve." She puts a hand on his arm and squeezes, forcing him to look at her. "None of this is your fault."

He's quiet for a moment before he declares quietly, "I'm gonna get him back."

"You won't do it alone."

* * *

Fourteen: Winter Soldier

They come to him in flashes. Memories. He thinks they're real. They feel real.

Cold, white ground. Falling snow. There's a man, a small man with round glasses. He knows him. He's afraid. "Sergeant Barnes," Zola greets with a pleased smile.

A train. He's on a train. Steve is there, reaching out to him, but the rail snaps, and he fails. "Bucky, no!"

Bucky. He's Bucky.

The scene changes. He remembers pain. So much pain. "The procedure has already started," Zola croons. "You are to be the new fist of HYDRA." He comes to on a metal table. Doctors hover around him. Bright lights. His left arm feels different, heavy. He holds it up. The metal gleams in the light. What have they done? He lashes out, grabs the closest doctor's throat, and squeezes.

He's punished for his violence. A cold coffin.

The last memory is different from the rest. There's a feeling of freedom, of rebellion. It's a small room with a smaller bed, but they manage. He buries his face in her red hair. Natalia.

He remembers previous assignments. He's killed people. It seems simple, at first. He is a soldier. He has his mission. He has done nothing wrong.

But it doesn't feel right.

And he doesn't understand.

More memories come to him, conflicting ones. Steve is there. He tries to remember who the man is, but he can't. He gets flashes of things. Street fights and back alleys. A man named Stark. He killed the man. He was a friend. No, a mission.

He remembers experiments and pain. Doctors in lab coats. Russians. He remembers cold. He's always cold. It's his punishment. He hears screaming and the zap of electricity. Only they're not his screams. They're hers.

He tries to remember more.

He can't.

Anger floods him and he lashes out. He grabs the front of a doctor's lab coat and flings him across the room. He wants to do more, but he doesn't move. There's a block in his brain. He wants to move. He wants to tear them apart.

But he only clenches his fists.

He doesn't understand why he won't move when it's all he wants to do.

The door to the vault opens. He can hear footsteps and recognizes the gait. Pierce walks into the room.

"Mission report."

 _Bucky, no!_

Pierce backhands him. He doesn't fight back.

"Mission report. Now!"

"The man on the bridge," he looks at Pierce, "who was he?"

There's a pause. He knows he's done something wrong. Pierce lies. "You met him earlier on another assignment."

"I knew him."

Once he says it aloud, he knows it's true. He doesn't mention the woman. She's his secret. They can't know. He doesn't want to get her in trouble.

"Your work has been a gift to mankind," Pierce says. "You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time. Society's at a tipping point between order and chaos. And tomorrow morning, we're gonna give it a push. But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

The Soldier doesn't care about the world. He doesn't remember enough to care.

"But I knew him," he insists.

Pierce's eyes narrow. "Prep him."

"Sir, he's been out of cryo freeze for too long."

"Then wipe him, and start over."

He's being punished. It feels familiar. He's said something they don't like. He's remembered. They want to take it away.

They push him back into the machine. He doesn't know what's going to happen. He can't remember, but his breaths begin to turn to gasps when steel restraints pin him to the chair. The whirl of machinery makes his heart pound.

 _No, no, no, no, no, no_.

Steve, he knows him. He knows him, he knows him, he knows him, he knows . . .

Then the pain starts, and everything disappears.

* * *

Fifteen: Steve

When he finally gets to the control panel on the Charlie Carrier, he's not surprised to see Bucky blocking his way. He looks for any sort of recognition, but Bucky's face is disturbingly blank. Something's changed since the highway.

"People are gonna die, Buck," he says. "I can't let that happen."

He waits. He waits for a sign, a flicker of emotion, anything. Nothing comes. Bucky doesn't know him. He hears Sam in his head. _I don't think he's the kind that you save. He's the kind you stop._

"Please don't make me do this," he begs.

The fight is brutal. There's none of the quick finesse of the highway battle. It's all hard hits and broken limbs. He takes a bullet to the thigh, another grazes his side. Bucky's blade sinks into his shoulder. He rips it out and throws it away. Knives were never his strong suit. That had been one of Bucky's tricks.

They grapple over the computer chip, and the longer the fight goes on, the more Steve realizes that Sam is right. He has to stop Bucky. He fights back harder. He breaks Bucky's arm to try to force him to drop the chip. It doesn't work, and they struggle until he gets Bucky into a chokehold.

Finally, his old friend falls unconscious.

He grabs the disk and hurries to the hub. It's a climb. They had fallen to a lower level fighting for the chip, and he's painfully aware of how exposed he is as he climbs. He knows that Bucky will not stay down for long.

He makes it to the control panel. The chip is in his hands when he hears the shot. He's been shot before, in the war. Grazes mostly. Once clean through his shoulder. He always hears the shot before he feels the bullet.

And he doesn't immediately feel the pain. It's the impact that drops him to his knees, as if someone had slammed a sledgehammer into his back. His lungs lose their air. His stomach feels numb for a blissful second before the pain hits. It burns like fire, as if someone stuck him in the gut with a poker. He can't breathe, and he tastes blood.

It takes all his strength to pull himself to his feet. His eyes are drawn to the scarlet stain spreading across his midsection. He forces his eyes up just long enough to switch out the chips. "Charlie lock," he gasps.

The launch of Project Insight fails by a single second.

Hill's voice crackles in his ear. "Okay, Cap, get out of there."

He knows he won't make it off the helicarrier, and blood loss as nothing to do with it. He refuses to leave Bucky. "Fire," he orders.

"But, Steve—"

"Do it!"

He thinks he drifts in and out of consciousness for a minute or so after the helicarriers begin to fire on each other. He's thrown to the ground as the carrier is rocked with missiles. Explosions threaten to burst his eardrums and the heat nearly chokes him.

He still hears Bucky scream.

Somehow Steve manages to climb down to him. Bucky's pinned by a beam. He thinks between the two of them that they will be able to lift it. Adrenaline floods his system. He forgets his wounds, places both hands under the beam, and lifts. That's when the adrenaline fails to mask the pain. It all flares violently, and he can feel a gush of blood seep from his stomach, but he only lifts the beam higher.

Bucky crawls out. Steve lets the beam drop. One hand immediately goes to his stomach.

"You know me," he insists.

"No, I don't!"

Bucky lashes out blindly. Steve deflects off his shield, but the blow sends both of them down. Steve struggles to stay on his feet. He stares at Bucky. The blank look is gone. He's confused. It gives Steve hope. "Bucky, you've known me your whole life," he says.

Bucky swings with his metal arm. It catches him in the jaw. He goes down, and for a split second, he wants to stay down. It feels easier. He knows its blood loss.

He manages to get to his feet again.

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."

"Shut up!"

Another hit. The shield absorbs it but he goes down again. It's not working. He realizes that asking Bucky to remember himself is asking too much. But he knows, he _knows_ , that Bucky knows him.

He rips off his cowl as he stumbles to his feet. His breathing is ragged. His knees nearly give out, but he stays on his feet. "I'm not gonna fight you, Bucky," he says.

And he does something reckless.

He drops his shield.

It falls into the Potomac.

He sees that Bucky is confused. He knows it's because he let go of his only defense. It's not a tactical decision. The Winter Soldier doesn't understand.

But he knows that Bucky will.

"You're my friend," he says.

Bucky roars. It's a sound of confusion and anger. He charges, and Steve does nothing to defend himself. They both hit the floor of the carrier hard. Steve does nothing to fight back.

"And you're my mission," Bucky says.

The first punch dazes him. "You're . . ." The second cracks his cheek. ". . . my . . ." The third makes his eye automatically swell. ". . . mission!" The rest simply become a blur of pain. But Steve doesn't fight back. He lets it happen. It isn't even difficult to let it happen.

Then the punches stop. He can see Bucky's confusion through his good eye. It reminds him of Peggy when she suddenly forgets where she is or who she's with. He waits for another hit. When it doesn't come, he challenges, "Then finish it." He doesn't care if they both die on the helicarrier. He's willing to die. He's also willing to bet his life that Bucky will remember. "Because I'm with you to the end of the line," he promises.

There.

He sees it for a split second. Recognition. Horror.

Then the bottom of the carrier gives way, and he's falling.

* * *

Sixteen: Natasha

She sits with Steve when no one else is there. Sneaking into the hospital after visiting hours, despite the guard at the door, is simple. She sits and watches over him. This goes on for days. No one ever catches her.

She leaves an hour before dawn and begins her hunt yet again. She's searched for him before but never with the determination that she feels now. Before it was about seeking retribution. Now it's entirely about need. She needs to know why there's a blank spot in her memory.

That's what she does while she sits with Steve, she remembers. She starts at the beginning, her earliest memory of a warm smile and a woman with red hair like her own. She starts there, and she remembers. The first sign something isn't right is in the Red Room. She isn't surprised that the problem lies there.

She remembers training. She remembers her cover as a ballerina.

Natasha focuses her attention there. Training.

She remembers training. She remembers beating the girls she called friends. She remembers killing the weak ones. She remembers her handlers. Karpov. Lukin. She remembers everything about her time. She remembers her graduation.

In her mind, she knows that what she remembers is what happened.

In her gut, she knows that something's missing.

James.

The Winter Soldier.

She realizes that he must have been there. It's the only explanation. She simply can't remember.

She tells herself that she gets the file for Steve, but she knows it's not true. Not entirely. She reads it cover to cover until she's memorized every word.

The meeting on Capitol Hill doesn't faze her. What little anxiety she has is quelled when she sees that the men before her have no idea what to do with her. It gives her the courage to walk out without a care. She'll have to find a new cover. She knows that. She has enemies that now know nearly everything about her.

And ironically, it's all her doing.

But first she has to see Steve. They'd agreed beforehand to meet at Fury's fake grave. She arrives at the graveyard just in time to see Fury leave. She smiles when she sees Steve with Sam. She's glad he won't be alone.

"You should be honored," she says with a glance at Fury's retreating figure. "That's a close as he ever gets to a thank you."

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Not going with him?"

"No," she smiles. "I blew all my covers. I've got to figure out a new one."

"That might take a while."

"I'm counting on it." She takes the file out of her jacket. "That thing you asked for," she says. "I called in a few favors from Kiev." She hands it to him and kisses his cheek. "Do me a favor? Call that nurse."

"She's not a nurse."

"And you're not a SHIELD agent."

"What was her name, again?"

"Sharon. She's nice."

She walks away put only makes it a few steps before she turns and adds, "Be careful, Steve. You might not want to pull on that thread."

She gives him the same advice that she's given herself and ignored. She knows what's in the file. She understands now, why she can't remember. She can't remember because the memories were taken from her.

Natasha does not immediately leave D.C. She knows that she should. She already has plans to go to a small cabin in Minnesota. It's off the grid, a safe house that not even Clint knows about, but before she leaves, she has to make one last stop.

She figures that the Smithsonian is the last place anyone would expect her to be.

Since she received the file, since she learned about the Winter Soldier, about _James_ , she's known what he would do. She knows because he taught her. Sometimes the best place to hide is right under someone's nose.

She suspects that he hasn't left town. He'll wait until the frenzy to find him dies down, and then he'll go somewhere far, somewhere US relations are tricky.

Until then, she thinks that he, like her, wants to remember.

The Smithsonian is more crowded this time around. In the past few weeks, Captain America has become even more of a hero.

She wants to go straight to his exhibit, but she forces herself to stake out the floor. She catalogs every face. None are familiar to her and no one recognizes her. She keeps moving for hours, waiting. It's a familiar routine to her. She's done this for the past two weeks.

She spots him the second he spots her.

He's in a dark jacket with a cap pulled low over his brow. His hands are in his pockets so no one sees his metal hand. He sees her but does not do anything more than look past her and continue on his way. She isn't sure if it's because he may remember her. That seems too idyllic.

She suspects that he knows she doesn't want any attention drawn to her.

So it's with a surprising amount of confidence that she follows him. He's standing in front of his own small memorial. She gives him a moment to stare at his own face and see a stranger. It's who she sees when she looks at the picture, a stranger. She doesn't recognize "Bucky" either.

When she finally stands next to him, he tenses but does not run. She looks up at him and studies his face. He looks lost, and her chest tightens even if she can't understand why. She looks back at the wall that summarizes his life so briefly and waits. Her gut tells her that she has to let him have control.

" _You were on the bridge_ ," he says.

Hearing her mother language makes her shiver. " _You shot me,"_ she replies before adding with a small smirk, " _twice."_

He frowns. " _I . . . I don't remember."_ Blue eyes study her face, searching. " _But_ _I know you."_

" _I can help you remember."_

" _And why would you do that?"_

" _Because I want to remember, too."_ She straightens up then and places her hands in her pockets. "I have somewhere to be," she says. "Completely off the grid." Glancing over at him with a teasing smile, she adds, "It'll fit two."

* * *

Seventeen: Barnes

He watches her leave and tries to remember.

He recognizes her from the bridge. He remembers shooting her.

More importantly, he remembers not wanting to pull the trigger. He remembers his finger twitching on the trigger, sending the bullet into her shoulder rather than her heart. He doesn't, however, remember why. He doesn't know why he couldn't kill her.

He leaves the exhibit soon after she does. The layout of D.C. is familiar to him, though he has no real memories of being in the city before a few days ago. It annoys him. Instinct leads him to his right and he sees her in the crowd.

Her hair reminds him of blood. Pure. Honest.

He follows her.

She leads him to the outskirts of the city where there's an older model black sedan in a grocery store parking lot. She takes the keys out of her pocket, climbs into the car, but does not immediately leave. He knows that she made him hours ago. He knows that she's waiting for him to decide.

He doesn't know why he followed her. He doesn't remember anything about her other than shooting her on the bridge.

But he _knows_ her.

It's like instinct. Beyond thought. He knows her.

He just doesn't remember her.

But he wants to. He wants to remember everything. She promised to help, and oddly he believes her.

She doesn't look at him when he slips into the passenger seat, but he sees her full lips twist into a pleased smirk. "Got a name?" he asks.

"Natasha. What's yours?"

"I don't know."

"I'm going to call you James."

* * *

 **There it is. As you can tell, I changed a few things to make the dynamic of Steve and Nat's relationship a little different from the film. I totally see them as the BFFs that every assumes are dating, and sometimes they go along with it because they're both giant trolls. Plus, now there's James, so there's a divergence. As I said before, I've got a sort of sequel that follows James and Natasha at the cabin in Minnesota. It explores both of them remembering their time in the Red Room. Oh, and I promise you'll find out what happened in Budapest. At least, what I think happened in Budapest.**

 **Drop me a line, pretty please. I haven't done this in a while. Be gentle. ;)**

 **Lots of love,**

 **AC**


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